ARC - Action de recherche concertée [ValEUR ''Governing values, governing through values, governed by values? The European Union as a risk polity'']Voir version en anglais [Values at the core of European integration have been widely discussed in recent years due to major evolutions in EU governance. Claims to define common references likely to hold European countries and citizens together and to justify public action have coexisted with divergences in the interpretation of these values. ValEUR analyses three main occurrences of ''European values''. Firstly, it may be a call to identity, memory and communicative resources in a quest for legitimization (governing through values). Secondly, it may come from the necessity to deal with ethical issues calling for normative policy choices (governing values). Thirdly, values may cause legal and political conflicts and challenge established balances of powers and regulation (governed by values). The EU has encountered the three scenarios. In each configuration, ''European values'' are invoked with different meanings and purposes. The hypothesis is that common patterns can still be found, turning the EU into a ''risk polity'', a political system where values become a usual part of European politics either as an answer to or a factor creating uncertainties. The project aims at a better understanding of the reasons and modalities of the emergence of ''European values'' on the EU agenda; of the way they create unity or division, circulate and frame different models of political community for Europe. ]

ENLIGHTEN''European Legitimacy in Governing through Hard Times: the role of European Networks'' (voir version en anglais) [''European Legitimacy in Governing through Hard Times: the role of European Networks'': ENLIGHTEN addresses the ways in which the EU's modes of governance cope with hard times on short- term and long-term issues. To do so it investigates the European governance architecture, which includes: modes of governance; expert networks; policy instruments; and legitimizing narratives. The ENLIGHTEN project suggests that an understanding of temporal issues is crucial to dealing with hard times, and for the legitimacy of the European project overall. It distinguishes between Europe's 'fast- burning' and 'slow-burning' crises, setting out to compare the ways in which EU policy actors have attempted to deal with them. The project maps how European institutions and expert networks handle these crises, and what European modes of governance relate are best suited to addressing these crises. ]

ERC Consolidator Grant Les organes non-élus : remède ou fléau de la démocratie ? [ERC Consolidator Grant Cure or Curse? Non-elected politics. Cure or Curse for the Crisis of Representative Democracy? ]Alors que de moins en moins d'Européens déclarent avoir confiance dans les institutions traditionnelles de la démocratie représentative, les autorités politiques tendent à multiplier les réformes institutionnelles pour réinstaurer la confiance. Parmi les multiples réformes observées ces dernières années, deux retiennent l'attention : la délégation de compétences politiques à des organes politiques composés soit d'experts, soit de citoyens tirés au sort. Cela revient cependant à déléguer du pouvoir politique à des non-élus, le contraire de la démocratie représentative ! Le nouveau projet de recherche de Jean-Benoit Pilet interroge ce paradoxe : de telles réformes auront-elles un effet positif sur le soutien des citoyens à l'égard de la démocratie représentative, ou vont-elles plutôt approfondir le fossé entre citoyens et les acteurs et institutions centrales? Le projet prévoit de combiner des données déjà collectées à l'échelle européenne afin de rédiger un ''cadastre'' de ce type de réforme et d'explorer le sentiment des citoyens européens vis-à-vis de celles-ci. A cette fin, de nouvelles enquêtes expérimentales en ligne et enquêtes par panel seront réalisées. [Evidence of a growing disengagement of citizens from politics is multiplying. Electoral turnout reaches historically low levels. Anti-establishment and populist parties are on the rise. Fewer and fewer Europeans trust their representative institutions. In response, we have observed a multiplication of institutional reforms aimed at revitalizing representative democracy. Two in particular stand out: the delegation of some political decision-making powers to (1) selected citizens and to (2) selected experts. But there is a paradox in attempting to cure the crisis of representative democracy by introducing such reforms. In representative democracy, control over political decision-making is vested in elected representatives. Delegating political decision-making to selected experts/citizens is at odds with this definition. It empowers the non-elected. If these reforms show that politics could work without elected officials, could we really expect that citizens' support for representative democracy would be boosted and that citizens would re-engage with representative politics? In that sense, would it be a cure for the crisis of representative democracy, or rather a curse? Our central hypothesis is that there is no universal and univocal healing (or harming) effect of non-elected politics on support for representative democracy. In order to verify it, I propose to collect data across Europe on three elements: (1) a detailed study of the preferences of Europeans on how democracy should work and on institutional reforms towards non-elected politics, (2) a comprehensive inventory of all actual cases of empowerment of citizens and experts implemented across Europe since 2000, and (3) an analysis of the impact of exposure to non-elected politics on citizens' attitudes towards representative democracy. An innovative combination of online survey experiments and of panel surveys will be used to answer this topical research question with far-reaching societal implication. ]

How Europe defines the "good god". The European Union' strategies to advocate freedom of religion and belief and to counter radicalization" « GOODGOD » [How Europe defines the ''good god''. The European Union' strategies to advocate freedom of religion and belief and to counter radicalization'' « GOODGOD »]The European Union (EU) has recently emerged as a significant player to promote freedom of religion and belief (FoRB) in its external policy and to build a coordinated approach of counter-radicalization (CR) in internal affairs.On both issues, public authorities at all levels of governance are led to define a ''good religion'' congruent with democratic and social norms to be protected and a ''bad religion'' that must be kept under control. The EU is no exception even if it has no direct competencies on FoRB as well as on CR and meets its usual difficulties to deal with value-loaded issues.The purpose of GOODGOD is to explain the reasons, modalities and effects of this new role of European institutions and arenas; and what is says about the contemporary recombination between the member states and the EU on one hand; between politics and religion on the other hand. The main hypothesis is that what happens at the level of the EU reflects andadapts slightly societal and political trends at work at national level: the 'securitization of religion', managed as a risk factor; its 'culturalization', as a mere symbolic resource to assert the legitimacy of public institutions and collective identity.Overall, it would mean that the EU has a limited transformative influence and is in the continuity of national secularisms and secularization. [The European Union (EU) has recently emerged as a significant player to promote freedom of religion and belief (FoRB) in its external policy and to build a coordinated approach of counter-radicalization (CR) in internal affairs.On both issues, public authorities at all levels of governance are led to define a ''good religion'' congruent with democratic and social norms to be protected and a ''bad religion'' that must be kept under control. The EU is no exception even if it has no direct competencies on FoRB as well as on CR and meets its usual difficulties to deal with value-loaded issues.The purpose of GOODGOD is to explain the reasons, modalities and effects of this new role of European institutions and arenas; and what is says about the contemporary recombination between the member states and the EU on one hand; between politics and religion on the other hand. The main hypothesis is that what happens at the level of the EU reflects andadapts slightly societal and political trends at work at national level: the 'securitization of religion', managed as a risk factor; its 'culturalization', as a mere symbolic resource to assert the legitimacy of public institutions and collective identity.Overall, it would mean that the EU has a limited transformative influence and is in the continuity of national secularisms and secularization.]

PAIRDEM''Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies'' [''Party-Interest Group Relationships in Contemporary Democracies'':A common view in scholarly literature and public debate is that the relationship between parties and interest groups shapes the nature of democratic governance. Still, party-group relationships have been largely overlooked by political scientists to date and taken for granted across different countries, institutional make- ups, types of party systems, and sectors. The proposed research project will advance the state of the art in this field by seeking to systematically examine the nature, the shaping factors and the consequences for policy- making of party-group relationships in long-established democracies across the world. ]

PPDB (Political Party Database) [PPDB (Political Party Database)]voir version en anglais [The Political Party Database Project is a cross-national collaborative initiative that is currently working to establish an online, public, database as a central source for key information about political party organization, party resources, leadership selection, and political participation within political parties in many representative democracies. ]

RepResentRepresentation and Democratic Resentment [RepResent Representation and Democratic Resentment ]Existing democracies are challenged by critics such as Trump, Brexiteers and populists claiming that democracy is not representative anymore. RepResent takes these claims serious by empirically examining the relationship between popular democratic resentment and the functioning of representation. Is representation failing? And, is democratic resentment driven by failing representation? Democratic representation consists of several dimensions, a substantive (policies), a procedural (institutions) and a symbolic dimension (feeling represented by representatives). Adequate representation entails there is congruence between the preferences of citizens and the actual policies, democratic procedures and representatives. RepResent is novel in the sense that it systematically compares citizens' views with elites' views, that it tackles all three dimensions at the same time to assess their individual contribution to democratic resentment, and that it does so in a dynamic over-time design. Concretely, RepResent examines the 2019 elections in Belgium, the campaign that precedes it and the term that follows. Its institutional structure makes Belgium a good, even a critical case. Using a large variety of methods all with a dynamic component and ranging from traditional panel surveys, over content analyses and experiments, to focus groups and interviews, RepResent aims to dig deep into one of the root causes of the widespread democratic resentment characterizing current politics. [Existing democracies are challenged by critics such as Trump, Brexiteers and populists claiming that democracy is not representative anymore. RepResent takes these claims serious by empirically examining the relationship between popular democratic resentment and the functioning of representation. Is representation failing? And, is democratic resentment driven by failing representation? Democratic representation consists of several dimensions, a substantive (policies), a procedural (institutions) and a symbolic dimension (feeling represented by representatives). Adequate representation entails there is congruence between the preferences of citizens and the actual policies, democratic procedures and representatives. RepResent is novel in the sense that it systematically compares citizens' views with elites' views, that it tackles all three dimensions at the same time to assess their individual contribution to democratic resentment, and that it does so in a dynamic over-time design. Concretely, RepResent examines the 2019 elections in Belgium, the campaign that precedes it and the term that follows. Its institutional structure makes Belgium a good, even a critical case. Using a large variety of methods all with a dynamic component and ranging from traditional panel surveys, over content analyses and experiments, to focus groups and interviews, RepResent aims to dig deep into one of the root causes of the widespread democratic resentment characterizing current politics.]

WEINBLUM Sharon, The Management of Security and democracy in Political Discourse. An analysis of the Competing Discursive Articulations of the Security-Democracy Nexus in the Israeli Parliament, directeurs: Michel Hastings et Paul Magnette, 2012

SANDRI Giulia, Intra-party democracy and political activism : a comparative analysis of attitudes and behaviours of grass-roots party members, directeur: Pascal Delwit, 2012

LONG Katya ''Security and Liberty: The Republican Dilemma in the Early American Republic'', Faculté des Sciences sociales et politiques/Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management; Dir : P. Magnette, 2009